Please, if you have a choice, do not fly with this airline. The way they treat their customers have hit a new low. Here is what happened to my family.
My parents flew on Air Canada Flight 25 from Shanghai to Seattle with a layover in Vancouver. My 65-year old mother gets very bad motion sickness from flights(ill to the point where she had to deplane on a wheelchair), and after the Shanghai to Vancouver leg of the flight, I was called to pick her up from Vancouver Airport directly since the passengers have already deplaned. I was going to drive her back to Seattle instead since she had already flown 12 hours, and was facing a 5 hour layover at Vancouver Airport. I did not want her to be nauseated more by flying to Seattle.
When my parents proceeded to go pick up their luggage, they were met with a very rude customer agent who refused to release their luggage(since airline was going to recheck the luggage for them to Seattle) unless they paid a penalty of$80 CAD(at least that was what was told). English is not my parents native language(although they know enough to get by) and because of that, they were treated very poorly by the agents. It wouldn’t be outrageous to surmise that the agents were being racist to them, but of course, some things cannot be proven. It’s a feeling one gets from such poor and rude treatment and from their patronizing tone of voice.
My parents are not wealthy people by any means. My mother has always been primarily a stay-at-home mother, working a part-time job as a waitress occasionally. My father was laid off from his job 3 years ago and has since been unemployed. They made this trip back to take care of my grandparents who needed to move retirement homes. Therefore, upon hearing this penalty fee, and feeling that they have no choice but to fly to Seattle, just so that they do not have to be penalized, they went ahead and very reluctantly gave in to flying again for the second leg. However, by this time, the agents, being heartless as they are, would not allow my mother to fly because of the fact that my father has told the agents that my mother was "sick". He was saying that she was experiencing motion sickness from the previous flight, but the response from the agents was that my mother had to go through medical quarantine first, and be evaluated before flying again(essentially ensuring that they would miss the flight to Seattle). Therefore, they have handcuffed my parents and FORCED them to pay the penalty just so that they could get their luggage at Vancouver. They had no choice but to pay, since they were not allowed to fly, and they were not allowed to retrieve the luggage unless their paid the penalty. If this is how this airline makes money, by price gauging their customers, then this airline has ho humanity left.
Now this is not the end of it. The agents charged my parents their credit cards, but did not give them a receipt. They just punched in the charge on their computer, and then finally gave my parents their luggage. When they got home, my parents got a PDF receipt for over$800 CAD, penalty for retrieving their luggage(I think they processed the penalty as a rebooking of some sort)! This is outrageous. When has retrieving a luggage cost more than an airfare?! Also, this ordeal left my parents spending an additional 5 hours at the airport dealing with the agents and awaiting their luggage, after a 12 hour flight, causing much additional distress and suffering. I don’t suppose Air Canada will do anything since their are a huge corporation with unlimited resources and can do what they want. I can only post it here to let others know about this experience and hope that other families do not suffer as my family has.